


Five Times Elrond Met Culdarusco

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Series: Fireside Tales [76]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, GFY, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 12:25:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1266490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You are your parents' son, Elrond. But I think you also know more than ever your father ever heard. Remember not to stare too long at the brightness, child of the West."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Elrond Met Culdarusco

**Author's Note:**

> Elrond, from childhood until the sailing of the White Ship  
> Prompt: Wander  
> Alternate Universe: Flame of Durin

He was a child when he first met her, a dark-haired and golden-skinned elleth who laughed under stars and told his ada he was a fool to search for the Valar and their lands. She left before the sons of Fëanor came, and Elrond didn't see her again until after he was sundered from his twin by their choices.

Her eyes are shadowed more now than he remembers, and her laughter not quite as bright, but she smiles brilliant as the sun, and flirts with all who surround her. Gil-Galad calls her Caranrusc, and she calls him Artanáro, and they seem to delight in arguing with each other. Elrond doesn't have a chance to speak to her before she leaves again, in Lindon one day and gone the next.

This time he asks, and Gil-Galad tells him that she's a wanderer, an avari who disdains the Valar and the Shadow alike. He doesn't know more than that, but then, no one west of the Greenwood does. Even there, where she is best known among the Eldar, few know her well, save perhaps Thranduil's wife.

The third time he meets her, she is exhausted, filthy, and furious. She wears armor that bears some distant resemblance to the familiar bands of steel that wrap comfortably around Elrond himself, but is not the same. There is another with her, who bears a strong resemblance to her, though he does not have the brightness of Caranrusc.

"Culdarusco," she corrects him quietly when he greets her with the only name he has for her. "Only your king calls me Caranrusc." She does not go with him back to the camp of Gil-Galad, but makes her own with the one she says only is her son. A spark in the night, two tired avari keeping watch over each other to fight again.

He doesn't learn if she lives or dies in the battle until nearly three thousand years have passed, and he has accepted the invitation - however grudging it might have been - to see Thorin crowned King Under the Mountain. She is there, bright and laughing, with stars in her eyes, flanked by her kin. Two avari who have steel in their voices and eyes, but not that of command so much as that of the Smith, the dark-eyed son, and another one younger than the first who seems to be a half-step apart from the world.

"My otornor, Haldasîcil and Tuluncerë," she introduces the Smiths, and then her sons, "Moriornë, who you may remember, and Ráva, now otorno to Thorin." Amusement sparks deep in her eyes, though she does not share what it is with him, not in the ever-public celebration of a coronation.

She is gone, with her bond-brothers and older son, before he can ask her in the quieter moments after.

When the White Ship is to sail, he is unsurprised to find her at the Havens, waiting on the dock, and watching him with a pensive expression. "You are your parents' son, Elrond. But I think you also know more than ever your father ever heard." She pauses, reaching out to touch his cheek with her fingertips. "Remember not to stare too long at the brightness, child of the West," she murmurs, and then withdraws her hand.

Elrond catches her gently before she can pass him in a flurry of bright silk and dark hair. "Why was my father a fool?" he asks, thinking back to the first memory he has of her, soft-edged as any memory of his earliest years.

She smiles, bright and almost brittle. "He wanted to find the Valar, that he could stare forever into the brightness, and bring too harsh a light to bear on the Darkness. For ever are the shadows darker where the light is brighter."

He knows she fights the same Shadow he has all his life, but hers is a fight that has its roots in different soil than his own. Elrond lets her go, and watches as she walks away into the east.

**Author's Note:**

> Elrond does actually understand what Culdarusco is trying to say, though not right at the time she says it - in part, because he's a healer, and he sees things somewhat differently than most other people. On the other hand, he doesn't see the Valar as being quite as blindingly bright as Culdarusco has always perceived, in part likely because he filters some of the input more than she had when she first encountered one of the Valar.


End file.
